The Wabash County Little League is starting an adaptive baseball charter, called the Challenger Division, for special needs athletes, ages 5-22. Any parents interested in having their child play in the Challenger Division should attend a Parent Interest meeting on Oct. 22, at Southwood Elementary School, 840 E. St. Rd. Wabash, from 5:30-6:30 pm.

Any volunteers interested in helping out should attend the meeting also.

Registration will take place in 2015. If you have any questions, please contact Joy Ruse at wabashchallengerlittleleague@gmail.com.

Posted on 2014 Oct 07

Manchester duo headed for regionals

by Gary Andrews

Although the Manchester tennis team fell in the Peru sectional Wednesday, the number one doubles team of Branden Scott and Noah Cain won the sectional in exciting fashion to move on to the Culver regional on Tuesday, Oct. 7.

Cain and Scott started out up 3-2 but lost 4 of the next 5 games and set one, 4-6. The Manchester duo regrouped with improved service returns and more energy to take the next set, 6-4. The final set saw Manchester lead until 5-4 when Peru mounted a last stand to win 2 games. Down 5-6, Noah Cain powered the team back even at 6-6 forcing a deciding tiebreaker to 7 points. Manchester would fight off two match points at 4-6 to get a match point at 7-6 and again at 8-7. Finally, at 9-8, Manchester prevailed 10-8.

“Branden brought the energy and Noah proved steady and the most consistent player on the court to earn the win,” said Coach Eichenauer.

The duo is now 17-1 for the season with their lone loss coming from Norwell on Sept. 8 and will face Culver Academies at the Culver regional.

Posted on 2014 Oct 07

Southwood defeats Manchester in Volleyball action

by Gary Andrews

Manchester didn’t make it easy, but the Southwood volleyball team completed a sweep of the county Thursday with a 25-22, 25-13, 25-20 win over the Squires.

In game one Southwood would jump out to an 8-4 lead getting two kills from Bailey Hobbs and one from Katelyn Murphy, but the Lady Squires would respond. Madison Isbell would get a kill along with an ace from Rae Bedke to cut the lead to 8-7. At 10-9 Sami White would tip a shot to the middle that started a 5-0 run to give the Knights a 15-9 lead. Hobbs and Murphy each had a kill with Sarah Peters recording two kills, but the pesky Squires wouldn’t go away. Manchester would go to Cierra Carter and Kendra Binkley for kills and cut the lead to 19-16 after a Kaitlyn Parrett ace. Bailey Lundnmark would then get in on the action for the Knights with two kills as they increased the lead to 22-17 when the Squires made another surge. A kill and a block for Corrie Osborne cut the lead to 22-20 and at 24-22 Murphy would pound one home for the 25-22 win.

The Knights got off to a good start in game two as Peters and White scored and were up 8-6 when they would score 7 of the next 10 points to grab a 15-9 lead. The lead would remain at 6 points until 18-12 when Peters banged home a kill that started a 4 point run to open a 22-12 lead. A Southwood error stopped the run before they scored the last 3 for the 25-13 win.

Manchester jumped out to a 2-0 lead in game three on a Cierra Carter kill only to have the Knights score the next three. Sarah Peters had a kill along with kills from Sami White and Bailey Hobbs. Leah Sorg would the put the Squires back up 4-3 with a tip and the see saw battle continued until 10-10. Corrie Osborne would nail a kill and the Squires took advantage of a Knights error to lead 12-10 when the dreadful Southwood run came. Katelyn Murphy would go high for a kill and was followed by three Sarah Peters kills along with a Sami White ace to score six in a row to grab a 16-12 lead. The Knights would build their lead to 20-14 when Manchester had one more push. With Leiah Brandenburg serving the Squires would score five straight to knot the game at 20. During the run Brandenburg had two aces with Binkley and Isbell getting kills. Emilie Harnish and Bailey Hobbs would then catch fire, recording two kills each as the Knights scored the next five points for a 25-20 win and a 3-0 match.

On a cold blistery night that had second half rain, the Wabash and Northfield football teams opened their county round robin schedule at Northfield with the Norse shutting out the Apaches 20-0 on the back of 236 yard rushing game from Josh Bickel.

The Apaches took the ball first and moved the ball down the field on a 13 play drive that took them to the Northfield 28 before giving the ball over on downs. The Norse and Bickel wasted no time taking advantage of the defense coming up big as Bickel raced 68 yards on their first play to the Wabash 8. Two plays later Bickel scored from 3yds out as the Norse took a 7-0 lead with 5:51 left in the quarter. With the wind and wet conditions the defenses would dominate the rest of the quarter ending at 7-0.

The Southwood and Manchester football teams duked it out for four quarters Friday with the final deciding score not coming until 2:36 left in the game as the Knights held on to defeat the Squires 21-14.

Southwood would score early in the first quarter when Nathan Hollars broke loose on a 4yd scoring scamper to give the Knights a 6-0 lead, which would be the only score of the first quarter.

Manchester would grab their only lead of the night with 3:37 left in the second quarter when Lucas Schilling connected with Keelan Norwood on a 16yd pass play and the Squires led 7-6. Nathan Hollars would run the ensuing kick off back to the Manchester 40, giving the Knights a shot with little time left in the half. The Knights didn’t need much time as Robbie Cole would find Jon Berlier on the second play for a 39yd scoring strike. Cole would run in the two point conversion and the Knights led 14-7 at the half.

Lucas Schilling and Bailey Ness would connect with 7:26 to go in the third quarter to knot the score at 14 when the rain started to come down and change the way the game was being played. The third quarter ended with the score tied at 14.

The calendar will turn to October before our next high school football Friday night, and the TRC conference schedule rolls on, but now there is an added aspect. For the final three Fridays, all are county match ups. The first match ups are Wabash traveling to Northfield for a border battle.

The other one is Manchester hosting Southwood. Both games are 7 p.m. kickoffs.

Jim Landrum will join me on the web cast from Manchester High School. We will broadcast beginning at 6:50 p.m. with the set up of this long time county match up. We hope you will join us.

Also, an added feature this week, don’t forget to join the web cast for volleyball action as Northfield travels to Manchester for a great match up on Tuesday. It should be broadcasting at 6 p.m. Check out Wabash WebTV for the archived game.

Join Wabash WebTV for exciting action of Indiana High School football and now volleyball. If you are at a game or cannot watch it live, an archive of the featured game is available on the website shortly after the completion of the games.

Posted on 2014 Sep 30

Local cross country teams run at Culver and New Haven

by Gary Andrews

Three of the four county high school cross country teams were participating in invitationals Saturday with Southwood running at New Haven, while Manchester and Northfield were at Culver.

At New Haven, there were three classes(A-AA-AAA) with the Knights running in the middle(AA). The girls team finished 10th, led by a 22nd place finish from Emily Lehner. Ellie White placed 29th, Haley Heath 30th, Taylor Heath 74th, Kassidy Atwood 86th, Brooke Elliott 99th, Emma Peebles 122nd, Emmy Titus 123rd. There were 171 runners in the race.

At Culver, there were three races being open, closed and elite. The Culver Invite is the largest invite in the state and one of the largest in the country. The Northfield girls ran in the elite race with all other teams running in the closed. In the closed girls race Manchester finished 10th. The Lady Squires were led by Clara Burdette in 39th. Kaitlyn Blum finished 44th, Natasha Niccum 60th, Emily Lynn 64th, Sophia Reifeltshammer 82nd, Alexis Vernon 86th, Molly Woods 99th. There were 172 runners.